Belt-fed
Shooting the Stoner: Mk23, Bren, and 63A Carbine
Is the Stoner 63 really as good of a gun as everyone says? Today is my first opportunity to try one out on the range, and I’m going to look at it in three different […]
Rifles
Light MGs
Stoner 63, 63A, & Mk23: History and Mechanics
The Stoner 63 is a firearm surrounded by a tremendous amount of mythology. It was Eugene Stoner’s big project following on the AR-15, and it was a brilliant piece of engineering – a single modular […]
Semiauto Rifles
LDP / Kommando: the “Rhuzi”
The Kommando was a semiauto SMG-type carbine designed by Alex du Plessis in Salisbury Rhodesia in the late 1970s. It was manufactured by a company called Lacoste Engineering, and financed by a man named Hubert […]
Light MGs
Pre-Production FG-42 (Type C)
Thanks to the generosity of a collector in the Association of Maltese Arms Collectors and Shooters, we have a chance today to take a look at a pre-production FG-42, serial number 015. This is one […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Type 13 Manchurian Mauser – A WW1 Legacy in China
This rifle sold for $5,750 at Rock Island on December 2, 2018. The Liao Type 13 was produced at what would become known as the Mukden Arsenal in Manchuria starting in 1924, with production facilitated […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Germany’s WW1 Zeiss Bifocal Scope: the Glasvisier 16
This rifle sold for $4,600 at Rock Island on December 2, 2018. The Zeiss 2.5x Glasvizier 16 optic is one of the most unusual and interesting of the German sighting systems used on rifles during […]
Semiauto Rifles
The Israeli Galil
These rifles are selling at Rock Island on November 30 and December 1, 2018 – the 5.56mm Model 392 brought $4,600 and 7.62mm Model 323S brought $3,738. The Galil was the result of a program to […]
Gunsmithing
When M14 Meets M16: The Fort Ellis XR-86 Frankenrifle
This rifle failed to sell at Rock Island on November 30, 2018. This rifle is the home shop creation of one Wilfred Ellis, a talented gunsmith form Pennsylvania. It is basically a combination of an […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Ishapore No6 Jungle Carbine SMLE Prototype
This rifle sold for $5,175 at Rock Island on December 2, 2018. In 1943, the British government began a program to develop a shortened and lightened version of the No1 SMLE rifle, for production in […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Mosin-Nagant Factory Pressure Test Rifle
This rifle sold for $3,450 at Rock Island on December 1, 2018. How did people determine chamber pressure in the years before computers and fancy electronics? Well, by squishing a calibrated slug of copper. Factories […]